Doug Adams, the former Imperial chef best known for his run to the final three on "Top Chef's" 12th season, is explaining why pop ups weren't right for him. After leaving Imperial, he thought he could stay busy traveling, holding one-off dinners and cooking at events around town while his new restaurant Bullard was being built.

"It just wasn't my style," Adams says. "I like to work with people. I like to cook. I like watching my team get it, when things start to click. It's been a real tough year. The pop ups just didn't do it for me. I came from such a big restaurant. I'm an all-in type of person, and Duane is the same way."

Duane is Duane Sorenson, founder of Stumptown Coffee and owner of The Woodsman Tavern, the Southeast Portland restaurant where Adams will be setting up shop until Bullard is ready to roll.

Adams

Adams and Sorenson met a few months back over beers at The Woodsman and started talking food, country music and the places where both intersect. In particular, the pair found they were both obsessed with a family-run, lunchtime-only meat and three in downtown Nashville called Arnold's Country Kitchen, which Adams calls "the best restaurant experience I've ever had in my life."

With construction delays on the surrounding Woodlark Hotel pushing his restaurant’s opening date from late 2017 to summer of 2018, Adams was looking for a project to keep him busy while his restaurant was being built. Sorenson asked if he would consider coming aboard at The Woodsman. With the blessing of Provenance Hotels' management, Adams starts his tenure at Sorenson's restaurant tonight (Wednesday, October 25).

Adams won't be changing the menu too much, at least at first, saying The Woodsman's double cheeseburger is already "near perfect." Instead, he'll add things slowly. First up? A thick-cut baloney sandwich with meat cooked in the wood-fired Josper oven and cheese, pickles and yellow mustard. Oysters, a signature of The Woodsman's gleaming raw bar, will take a bath in that Josper as well, emerging as Oysters Rockefeller or some of the other classic. Nashville hot chicken could be on deck as well, but not until Adams is satisfied with his recipe.

One thing that won't change? The Woodsman Tavern's double cheeseburger, which Adams describes as "near perfect."

"My experience at Prince's Hot Chicken in Nashville was, if not life changing, at least the next 24-hours changing," Adams says. "They tell you to freeze your toilet paper."

Adams pauses, listening to the music playing overhead at the restaurant. "I love Dwight Yoakam so much."

"Are you kidding me?" Sorenson says. "I wish I had more garage doors so I could paint all my favorite Honky Tonk stars up and down 46th street."

"That's the coolest thing about this whole thing, getting to talk about food and music," Adams says. "That's where Duane and I see eye-to-eye the most. We're going to make approachable comfort food. I'm not trying to break any rules or be in 'Art Culinaire.'"